MOSCOW SAYS DRUG SUSPECT MAY HAVE BEEN NASCENT SPY

MOSCOW, Feb. 27 -- The Russian domestic security agency announced today
that it has arrested an American student on drug charges and hinted broadly
that he might be a spy in training, a disclosure some saw as a response to
last week's capture of alleged FBI turncoat Robert P. Hanssen.

John Edward Tobin, a Fulbright scholar conducting post-graduate studies in
southern Russia, was imprisoned a month ago, long before Hanssen was
accused of being a double agent for Moscow. But Russian authorities
publicized Tobin's case today with a flourish, even providing Russian
television with footage of the arrest.

While Tobin was not charged with espionage, the Federal Security Service,
the main internal successor to the KGB, made much of the fact that he had
studied Russian at a U.S. military-sponsored school in Monterey, Calif.,
and received military intelligence training at Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
Moreover, it said in a statement, "he was allowed to work with classified
documents of the U.S. Department of Defense starting from May 1997" and
spoke nearly flawless Russian, "without any accent, including some dialects."

In Washington, the U.S. Army confirmed that Tobin is a member of the Army
Reserve.

It said that he attended a military language school, was trained at Fort
Huachuca, the Army's intelligence center, and is a member of the 325th
Military Intelligence Battalion, a reserve unit based in Waterbury, Conn.,
where he holds the low enlisted rank of specialist.

But the Army went on to insist in its statement that "he is a private
citizen studying abroad and his presence abroad is in no manner linked to
his status as a junior enlisted member of the Army Reserve."

The U.S. Embassy in Moscow declined to comment because Tobin had not signed
a privacy waiver. But the State Department in Washington, without
mentioning Tobin by name, said a U.S. consular official visited the
detained American last week and was scheduled to see him again next week.
The Fulbright office in Moscow said it was instructed by Tobin to speak
only with his parents and girlfriend.

A woman identified as Tobin's girlfriend, reached by telephone in New York,
said she would not discuss the situation.

"The Fulbright program is not a training ground for spies," a State
Department official said. "It is a program to promote better understanding
between U.S. citizens and citizens of other countries."

The announcement of Tobin's detention came against a backdrop of tension in
U.S.-Russian relations. A senior Russian official today lashed out at the
United States in apparent reaction to this week's annual State Department
human rights report, which criticized Russian abuses in Chechnya.

"When will they stop telling Americans lies about the processes that are
taking place in our country?" Press Minister Mikhail Lesin exclaimed during
a briefing at the Interfax news agency.

Lesin suggested that Moscow would sponsor an advertising campaign in the
United States to create a positive image of Russia and give financial
support to organizations "struggling for freedom of speech" in America. The
Russian government might even publish its own report "on the situation with
freedom of speech and freedom of action in the United States," he said testily.

Tobin, said to be 24 years old, was studying at Voronezh State University,
300 miles south of Moscow, where he reportedly was working on a thesis
about the change in Russian mood over the past decade. Authorities offered
no evidence that he was spying, and a local official in Voronezh said there
was no reason to think he was.

"There are no grounds to think he is a spy," Pavel Bolshunov, a spokesman
for the Voronezh office of the security service, said in a telephone
interview. "But there is ground to assume he may be trained for a future
intelligence job."

A State Department official said that Fulbright exchange student's normally
disclose their educational and professional backgrounds to their hosts.

Bolshunov said Tobin was detained the night of Jan. 24 not far from a club
called Night Flight. Local police found a small quantity of marijuana on
him and charged him with illegal possession, the official said. Tobin was
released, but did not show up for a scheduled meeting with the
investigator, Bolshunov said, and so police arrested him at his apartment
on Feb. 1. (A State Department official said Tobin was called to the FSB
office on Jan. 26.)

Although official reports in Moscow suggested Tobin resisted arrest,
Bolshunov said, "He was obviously nervous, swung his arms, but it would be
wrong to say that it was resistance." Tobin remained in a detention
facility in Voronezh after another bail hearing today.

News of his case came as prosecutors resumed the trial of a Russian arms
control researcher accused of spying for the West. A court in Kaluga, south
of Moscow, today refused to release Igor Sutyagin during the proceedings
and rejected five of the 10 people on the defense witness list, according
to Interfax.

Sutyagin, an official at the Institute for the Study of the United States
and Canada who has been behind bars since his October 1999 arrest, has been
accused of collecting information on Russian nuclear weapons and the
country's missile attack warning system. His defense attorneys insist he
was not spying and used only published information.

Staff writers Steven Mufson and Thomas E. Ricks in Washington contributed
to this report.